


Letting Go

by MeJacinta



Category: New Amsterdam (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Grief, Healing, Hurt, New Amsterdam - Freeform, Season 2, implied romantic feelings, sharpwin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeJacinta/pseuds/MeJacinta
Summary: Helen and Max's fading friendship is resuscitated when Luna suffers an allergic reaction. Helen works to save the baby, and also Max.
Relationships: Max Goodwin/Helen Sharpe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just began watching New Amsterdam this year, and i'm hopelessly hooked to Max and Helen's chemistry. They're so different and so alike at the same time, and i don't think they realize just how badly they NEED each other.
> 
> So does Luna's allergic reaction pull a Parent Trap on them here? I'm not sure, but stick around to find out.
> 
> 2 chapters, if not more.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen is surprised when Max calls for her help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme just pt it out there first: I''m no medical expert, and whatever medical procedures described in this story are purely theoretical.
> 
> I enjoy Sharpwin as friends and as a potential couple, and am brimming with joy Max lately tried to make a move on her :)
> 
> This story, though, is set a bit after Season 1 when Max is still struggling with grief, and Helen with abandonment.

The ring almost stunned Helen out of her booties, and when she saw who was calling her stomach knotted. She proceeded to pick the call anyway.  
“Max?”  
“Umm, Helen?” He sounded frustrated above Luna’s ear-piercing cries.  
Helen felt her breath hitch in her throat. “Max, what’s wrong?” she choked out. Because that was all Max seemed to inspire in her lately: fear and worry.  
“A—actually, here’s the thing,” Max broke off with that casual laugh of his, when in reality there was nothing to laugh about.  
From Helen’s little experience, baby Luna sounded terribly sleep deprived, as did Max. For how long Max had lived with that while managing to successfully ran New Amsterdam daily, she could not understand or imagine.  
An awkward pause stretched from Max’s end of the line before his soft voice emerged again, this time with a less comic kick to it. “We need your help. You still there, Helen?”  
She tried her best to ground herself in the moment. The cool night air, the honk of car horns, faceless pedestrians rushing past. But in the end it was all still surreal.  
The proud, stubborn and often insufferable Max Goodwin actually wanted Helen’s help. He was admitting he needed it.  
“Uhh…yes. Sorry,” Helen startled, just remembering it was her turn to talk.  
“If you’re busy I could just…” Max begun.  
“I’m on my way, Max. Don’t move!”  
She instantly flagged down the first cab she could see after Max cut the call.   
Help came in many forms. And maybe this time, it was Max and Luna who were about to help Helen.  
***************  
When Max opened the door, Luna was no longer crying.   
“H—hey!” He blinked at her from behind puffy, bloodshot eyes, wide, as though he were seeing her for the first time in a long while.  
Helen was blanketed with the same sensation looking up back at him. “Hey, Max,” she managed. She had ran her way there and her braids were askew somehow, brushing against one side of her face. “How’s Luna doing?”  
The spell broke the moment she invoked Luna’s name, and Max moved so she could pass. “Well, she’s stopped crying just now. I was about to call… let you know everything’s OK. I’d been freaking out for nothing, honestly…”  
As Max continued rambling on, Helen was struck with the memory of the last time she was at his house. The dreadful event that had befallen them soon after Luna’s birth.  
Max was still keeping Georgia’s things. Her ballet shoes under a rustic shoe rack, the floral dresses still hung in an open wardrobe, a collection of odd-looking spices and herbs on the shelves in the kitchen area.  
Helen swallowed, and her smile was shaky when Max shut the door.   
“How are you guys?” she attempted a shot. “You been getting enough sleep last few nights?”  
“It’s you we’re worried about,” Max surprised her. “How can you even stand there when you’ve been having triple shifts all week?”  
She allowed him to relieve her of her Prada purse, which he placed on the kitchen counter before moving to a coffee maker. “Or should I make you tea?” He said, a soft, cautious look plastered on his face. “Better yet some herbal chai. Georgia enjoyed it—”  
“Tea’s fine,” Helen cut in. Between the sofa and the white cot, the latter was so much more appealing. If just to ease her mind from the thoughts of death and losing her closest friend to grief.  
Luna’s white cot was like a light in the dark, a haven in a rough place, the consoling white rose on a headstone.  
She peered down at the baby-pink blankets and the alabaster side-cheek peeping from the folds of pink and baby-animal illustrations. “What you give her?” she asked, meaning baby Luna.   
“Formula,” Max replied, scratching his mop of dark-brown hair. He looked around at various mason jars, confused, as a pot of water steamed on the cooker. “Homemade. I didn’t get time for the grocer’s.”  
Helen took off her trench coat before throwing it onto the larger bed nearby. “You knocked her hard then?” she observed, crouching down on one knee to approach the baby-pink bundle. “Luna’s deep asleep.”  
“That’s not right.”  
Helen held her breath as Max’s towering frame suddenly stooped down to her left—the closest they had been to each other in a while.   
“Luna rarely ever sleeps without Georgia’s lullaby.” His tone was soft and affectionate, like the old Max.   
Helen tried not to think about it too much. “I bought some formula on my way here,” she remembered. “Could you please fetch me my bag?”  
“Helen,” Max warned.   
“Max, it’s not bad receiving help,” for the hundredth time, Helen reminded him.  
And Max’s pointed silence was telling. He had not changed. Perhaps he did not even know why he had called for help in the first place.  
Her blood boiling, Helen moved to peel the baby-pink covers from Luna’s body with care. “Max, I know you think I’m being pushy…”  
“We don’t think you are.”   
Again with the ‘we’, Helen thought with indignation. As if she had not realized that was the word he invoked to justify pushing her away lately; because for him it was just Max and Luna. No one else in the world meant them any good. Not anyone who wanted to help anyway.  
“Well, I’m glad Luna agrees…” Helen begun to bite back.  
But then the covers came off fully from Luna, and she noticed the sheen of sweat on the baby’s forehead, her feeble thoracic movement as well.  
“Max,” Helen's said, as calmly as she could, “what was in Luna’s baby formula?”  
“I never really….I lost the recipe,” Max paused, drawing closer. “Hey, is everything all right?”  
Helen slid her fingers under the soft folds of baby Luna’s neck and gasped at the blistering heat there. “Luna’s having an allergic reaction, Max,” she answered to Max’s horror. “Get me a syringe, cold towels and anti-histamines, now!”  
*************


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen puts all bets on the table in order to save Luna's life, but will Max trust her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helen challenges Max to trust her.

“HURRY, MAX!”  
Helen eased baby Luna into her open palms before lifting her gingerly out of her cot. Amidst the cluttering noises from Max in the back as he searched for syringes and hissed out curses, she made her point heard to little Luna.  
“You’ll be okay, luv. I’m going to save your life.”   
She pulled a moist sanitizer cloth from her things to place on the baby’s forehead, turning to Max. “How’re we coming along?”  
“Helen, I swear they were here!” He did not have to look at her for her to know that he was crying. The quavering of his shoulders confirmed it, and he sounded like he were drowning.  
“Get me sowing needles then,” Helen felt for the hollow pulse along the baby’s chubby forearm. Time was slipping away and chances of an ambulance coming through in time was near to none.  
It made Helen sick to her stomach having to think of that. It brought it all back to her...memories of the last time Luna’s life had been put at risk.  
“This is not happening,” Max’s words pulled her back into the moment, and he was staring at her, shaking his head, few towels in his hands.  
Helen exploded. “The sooner we get the anti-histamines in Luna’s system, Max, the more she stands a chance,” she barked. “Please, just fetch needles and sterilize them now!”  
The veil over Max’s lifted, and he was darting to a cabinet by his bed one moment, then scrambling for the hot water faucet in the kitchen in the next.  
Helen laid baby Luna on the ground before grabbing her finest, most absorbent cotton handkerchief. “Max,” she called, and he appeared in a flash, kneeling beside her to hand her a tray of sterilized sowing needles and a vile of anti-histamines.  
His fingers shook as he rubbed soothing circles over Luna’s trembling chest. “Will this work?” he was looking at her like his world hang by her studded fingernails, “Helen, tell me.”  
“You need to trust me, Max,” Helen replied, holding his gaze. “As you always have.”  
Max gave a faint nod. “Do what you have to do.”  
She unscrewed the top of the anti-histamine vile without a second thought, emptying out the brown liquid onto her handkerchief.  
“We should save half,” Max suggested, slowly pressing a fresh wet towel onto baby Luna’s forehead. He was doing so well for a man who would have lost his daughter some few seconds ago, and that made Helen allow herself a fleeting moment of pride as she glanced at him.  
“Right,” she gingerly wrapped the handkerchief round two needles, forming a small knot to feed in more anti-histamine. “Give Luna to me.”  
He had already traced the baby’s vein on her behalf and Helen proceeded with caution. The moment the needle broke into Luna’s skin, Helen began wringing at the tiny knot above the needle, so that anti-histamine seeped down to the needle and into the baby’s internal system.  
“Max, is it working?” Her heart was pounding in her ears to the rhythm of the baby’s pulse against her gloved fingertips. She could not let Max down. Not after all that he had been through…was going through.  
Holding her breath, Helen watched Max inspect his baby. From her forehead to the flaps of her neck, to the small bump of her chest.  
Helen could have torn the very braids off her head just anticipating. “Well, is it?” she demanded, desperate.  
Max’s eyes were shining with tears when he lifted them up to look at her.  
Helen deflated. “We can try again…” she began, her throat closing.  
“Luna’s okay,” came the answer. Max exhaled, his eyelids fluttering shut with relief. “Sharpe, your idea has worked.”  
Immediately, something unclasped in Helen’s chest; and it was her turn to breathe out the tension.  
Luna’s head stirring in Max’s arms, the quivering smile across Max’s face…it all brought a swell of emotions so raw and unbridled across her chest. These were the people she cared for—no, loved. She loved them, and had missed them.  
“Thank you, Helen,” she could see Max mouth the words to her through the tears rippling across her vision. “Thank you.”  
*******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stick around for chapter 3 :)


End file.
